


when it's about the approach

by wafflelate



Category: Dreaming of Sunshine - Silver Queen
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Mentions of Haruno Sakura, Takes place vaguely around the Police Arc I think?, Teacher Mitarashi Anko, Tenten (Naruto)-centric, Tenten POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:01:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27519556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wafflelate/pseuds/wafflelate
Summary: Mitarashi Anko, who had been sitting across the table from her and eating dango in a companionable silence, suddenly asks, "Something wrong with the seal?"Tenten looks up at her and grimaces, shoulders slumping. She jokes, "No, just wrong with me," and then regrets it because it's a littletootrue.Anko scowls at her and shoves one of the baskets of dango at Tenten aggressively. "Don't talk about my club members like that," she demands. She shoves the basket a little closer when Tenten doesn't immediately help herself.Or: Anko-sensei does a little substitute teaching.
Relationships: Mitarashi Anko & Tenten
Comments: 15
Kudos: 275
Collections: Fic In A Box, Heliocentrism — a Dreaming of Sunshine recursive collection





	when it's about the approach

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the_rck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_rck/gifts).



Tenten slowly pushes her chakra into the seal, winding the chakra consciously down the spiral path laid out by the seal. It's like threading a needle, or lining up a tricky shot, or inserting herself into conversations with clan heirs: she can't do too quickly, but being overly hesitant is just as bad. 

Lighting every light laid out along the seal's spiral requires precision, the kind of exact chakra control necessary for medical jutsu. 

Tenten can _still_ only get about half way. 

It's frustrating, but Tenten restrains herself to a frown. Crumpling the seal the paper is written on would be dramatic and a little satisfying, but Tenten had had to work herself up to asking Nara Shikako for the seal in the first place and hadn't been quite brave enough to ask Shikako to show her how to make it herself. If she destroys it in a childish outburst, she'll have to work up to asking Shikako about it _again_. 

Mitarashi Anko, who had been sitting across the table from her and eating dango in a companionable silence, suddenly asks, "Something wrong with the seal?" 

Tenten looks up at her and grimaces, shoulders slumping. She jokes, "No, just wrong with me," and then regrets it because it's a little _too_ true. 

Anko scowls at her and shoves one of the baskets of dango at Tenten aggressively. "Don't talk about my club members like that," she demands. She shoves the basket a little closer when Tenten doesn't immediately help herself. 

Anko almost _never_ shares and, Tenten realizes, wouldn't offer if she didn't mean it. So Tenten selects a skewer. 

It's still warm when she bites into the first dense sweetened rice bun, and Tenten suddenly realizes that she's _starving_. It takes real effort not to inhale the entire serving of dango immediately. 

"Everything's better with dango," Anko advises her, with the air of someone delivering wise advice. 

"You're right," Tenten mumbles. Tenten has enough money now to indulge in street food if the mood strikes her, but it never really does. Living frugally is an ingrained habit and anyway its wisest to save as much money as possible.  


Some day, maybe soon, she won't be able to continue with field work. It's inevitable, and it's not like Tenten has a clan or even any family to fall back on. If Tenten doesn't die in the field she's likely to be forcibly retired from active duty due to injury by the time she's 30, at which point she'll go back to collecting a tiny stipend from the village the way she did when she was an Academy student. It will be enough to live on, and with Tsunade-sama taking a turn under the hat the village is sure to cover any lingering medical issues, but Tenten has always aspired to so much more. She'll need money set aside if she wants to make anything out of herself. 

Anko inhales the rest of the dango while Tenten is slowly munching her way through her one skewer. Whenever Anko finishes a set of dango she whips the skewer at the small target set up against the wall, sinking the slim wooden skewer inches deep into the target in an impressive show of both control and accuracy. 

Not for the first time, Tenten thinks: Mitarashi Anko is _so cool_. 

Tenten considers the empty skewer in her hand for a moment and then flings it at the target with the same flick of the wrist that Anko always uses. It doesn't sink in as far as Anko's, but it hits where Tenten wanted it to hit. It's...passable. Tenten needs more practice with spontaneous unlikely weapons. 

"Not enough chakra," Anko says, "but pretty good." 

"I was worried I'd put too much in." 

Anko waves a careless hand. "You'll never get anywhere if you're scared of a little stick like that blowing up in your face. But I guess that's what the seal is for, huh? I think I've seen Sakura with one." 

"Yes," Tenten says slowly. She tries to keep her face _very_ neutral when she adds, "But she probably uses a more advanced version. Her chakra control is too good for this one to be useful. Because she's a medic nin." 

Tenten tries pretty hard not to think about Haruno Sakura too much. They don't run into each other very much at Kunoichi Club — they've actually probably met the most in other social situations, as strange as that is — and Tenten...tries not to be jealous. Or bitter. Sakura is _amazing_ , and it's not any fault of Sakura's that she's achieving exactly what Tenten had always wanted. It's not Sakura's fault that Tenten had lacked the talent _and_ the connections to get where she most wanted to go. 

Anko squints at her. "It's okay to be worse at chakra control than a medic," she tries. 

It is. Tenten _knows_ it is. She's carved her way into a good life with Gai-sensei's help, playing to her strengths, and her chakra control has never been a problem except for closing off that _one_ career path. Besides, how could Tenten feel really sorry to herself about it when she spent so much time fighting next to Rock Lee? He'd probably sense the self-pity on her and then it would be extra training sessions and pep talks for days. 

Still. 

"I just want to be better." 

"I can't _imagine_ you need to be told to train more," Anko says dryly. 

No, no one's ever accused Team Gai of needing _that_ particular advice. Tenten stifles a sudden smile. 

"But," Anko goes on, "I guess you've stopped seeing results?" 

Tenten nods. "For a while." 

"What'd Gai say?" 

"I haven't had a chance to ask him." 

She's seen him a few times, but the war with Cloud had meant their regular team meetings had come to an end. And Tenten _knows_ that Gai is still her teacher and there's no reason she can't just ask him the next time she catches him in an outpost hallway, but she also knows she won't. It's uncomfortable. Gai-sensei is even busier than Tenten is and she should improve on her own like he expects. 

"Are you free after the meeting?" Anko asks. 

Blindsided, Tenten offers a hesitant, "Yes?" 

Anko nods firmly. And then the conversation is over — Yamanaka Ino arrives, followed closely by Isaribi and Kurama Yakumo. Anko has to run the meeting. 

Tenten gets so absorbed in Ino's improvised poison workshop during the second half of the meeting that she nearly forgets that Anko had wanted to make plans. Or something. Anko catches her eye at the end of the meeting, just when Tenten has risen to skedaddle out of the room before the conversation can devolve into off-topic chattering. 

It's not that Tenten is unsociable or standoffish. She just doesn't... _get_ it. And Shikako's not here today, as usual, which is a shame because _Shikako_ likes shop talk and Tenten can talk shop, at least. 

Tenten settles for neatening the room while Anko wraps her duties up. Mostly this involves straightening the chairs — those Academy girls were cute, but they were kind of messy! — and carefully wiping the tables down alongside Ino. 

(" _Just_ in case," Ino had clarified, providing gloves. "It's probably fine, but accidental poisonings are bad.") 

By the time Anko comes over to collect her, Tenten is removing dango skewers from the target for lack of anything else to do. She should have brought sealing notes with her or something. 

"C'mon," Anko says, and leads Tenten out of the building and towards the training grounds. 

"Are we sparring?" Tenten asks when they settle in an available training ground. She's not opposed, but it's a little weird not to be _sure_. She should probably be stretching, right? 

Anko has a sharp smile that sends a little shudder down Tenten's spine — a sure sign that sparring with Anko will be a great idea. "Sure. But first, we're going over every chakra control exercise you know and then I'll teach you some new ones." 

Tenten has several conflicting emotions at once. 

For one: _new_ chakra control exercises? Tenten knows about half a dozen, but a lot of them have stopped being challenging enough to be useful for training her control. Tree walking is second-nature now and water walking only requires concentration if Tenten is trying to traverse white water rapids or something. The leaf exercise is to the point where she can't add any extra leaves to up the challenge anymore. Everything else is pretty much just as stalled, although she's had some results with trying to learn to tree walk with her body parts other than her feet. It was a good work out, at least, trying to scale a tree using just her elbows. And it annoyed Neji. 

For another: "I'll never be good enough to be a useful medic." 

Anko shrugs. "But if you try, you'll probably be useful at other things along the way, right? Even if you never get where you want to go." 

This is why Gai-sensei likes Anko so much. 

"Okay, Anko-sensei," Tenten says. "Teach me!" 

She didn't get onto Team Gai by being a quitter, after all. 


End file.
